An experimental analysis of the effect of different media frames used to present IPCC reports on how shareable they are and their psychological impact

Each successive report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has provided an increasingly alarming picture regarding anthropogenic influence on the earth’s climate and has done so with increasing scientific... [ view full abstract ]

Each successive report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has provided an increasingly alarming picture regarding anthropogenic influence on the earth’s climate and has done so with increasing scientific certainty. However the potential societal and political impact of IPCC reports is largely mediated by its coverage in print/TV media, and increasingly social media. Therefore the particular ways in which findings and implications of IPCC reports are framed in such media, and the effect of such frames on their spread and impact, become crucial objects of investigation. In previous work we mapped ten different ways in which the findings of IPCC AR5 were framed in UK and US print/TV media and on Twitter in 2013/14 (O'Neill, Williams, Kurz, Wiersma, & Boykoff, 2015). The work we present here developed these into a series of binary frame contrasts that we manipulated orthogonally in an 2x2x2 experimental design to examine how frames affect a) how re-sharable the media narratives might be interpersonally and on social media, and b) recipients levels of concern about and support for action to tackle climate change. We presented 202 participants with one of eight versions of a news article that was manipulated to a) construct climate science as either ‘settled’ or ‘uncertain’, b) construct action on climate change in terms of either averting disaster or taking a positive opportunity, and c) construct the need for action as a matter of either moral or economic urgency. All versions were compiled using text and visuals drawn from real world news stories about the IPCC. Participants then answered a series of questions to measure their concern about climate change, their willingness to share the presented information though on/offline social networks, their support for climate policy and their intentions to reduce their own personal carbon emissions. We found that our three frames interacted with one another to affect shareability and psychological impact of the media narrative across our different outcome variables in complex ways that were not always immediately intuitive. For example, disaster narratives were more sharable and caused more concern than opportunity narratives, but only when framed in economic terms. When morally construed, opportunity narratives were more sharable and concerning than disaster ones. Despite finding framing effects on shareability, concern, and policy support, we found no effects of the frames on personal behavioural intentions. Theoretical interpretations of our findings and their implications for climate change communication will be discussed.